Life
Theatre review: The Comedy of Errors
Was it worth reviving this comedy? Alas, not
December 3, 2021 09:55
Was it worth reviving this comedy? Alas, not
December 3, 2021 09:55It is difficult to imagine a better conceived production of Shakespeare’s comedy than this one directed by Phillip Breen and first seen in Stratford-upon-Avon earlier this year.
It begins with a beautifully staged piece of description in which ageing grieving father Egeon (Antony Bunsee) describes how his infant twin sons were separated when their ship sank in a storm. The boys were accompanied by two others boys we later learn who were also separated and who each became a servant of one of Egeon’s sons.
This ridiculously involved piece of exposition is given life by mute tableaux illustrating the historical events. It sets up one long running (literally) joke about mistaken identity. When one of the twins (Antipholus) and his servant (Dromio) arrive in the land where the other twin and servant live (handily also called Antipholus and Dromio) hilarity ensues. Or, if not quite hilarity, much amusement.
Shakespeare explores almost every conceivable way in which the lives of four people can become unwittingly entwined. Thinking his luck is emphatically in, one Antipholus (Guy Lewis) makes love with the wife of the other (Rowan Polonski) while the latter is chased for a debt incurred by the former. Meanwhile one servant is chased by the fiance of the other Dromio, and so on until the knockabout plot reaches a crescendo of chaotic repercussions before, as always, reconciliation and reunion restore calm.
All this is serenaded by an a cappella group whose close harmonies add a satirical knowing air. Yet not knowing enough it seems for the scene in which when one of the Dromios (the excellent Jonathan Broadbent) makes fun other’s (Greg Haiste) future wife because of her size. Here the production seeks to distance itself from the serial jokes about a fat people which is why Broadbent steps out of character and pleads like a stand-up comedian for the audience to take into account that the jokes are 400 years old.
But the rest of the humour is by far the biggest problem here. Every misunderstanding lasts longer than the conceit deserves, so the play is always having to catch up with what the audience already knows. This is why farce is so difficult to revive. No matter how madcap and slapstick the plot it can never be as funny as a well drawn character in crisis. Hence Twelfth Night and its one Malvolio will always be infinitely more funny than two or 200 Antipholuses.
Hats off to the excellent cast who put their all into the play. But not even they can make a case for the revival.
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